Fast and Slow: A Tale of Two Opposites
by CaseyIsMyValentine
Summary: Even though she has her doubts, she knows she needs his calmness to balance out her recklessness. She just doesn't see it until after drinking that milkshake.


**Note: **(The title of the story is based off a new The All-American Rejects song from their new album, eek!) And yes, this story has Cammy. But it also has…DAMMY. Whatever that is, I guess you'll have to find out yourselves.

**_Fast and Slow – A Tale of Two Opposites_**

I stand with my palms facing outward, trying to stop the flow of blood as best as I can. Casey clicks a button the remote on the car keys and the trunk of Candi Acosta's BMW makes a click and a _beep-beep _as the trunk opens.

He lifts out a first-aid kid tucked in the far back of the trunk compartment and turns to me. "You do know you're going to be the death of me. Right?"

I nod miserably, but my mind was more focused on trying to staunch the blood from dripping all over my shoes. The last thing I needed was to come home in bloody high-tops, to have Grams have a heart attack with worry. She already worried enough.

"I'm waiting for the moment for you to actually patch me up," I try joking but I sound as miserable as I look. I try to put a grin on my face as Casey laughs lightly. He tenderly takes one of my palms in his hands and begins to wrap a soft, white bandage around my palm, over and over again. I can feel the pain already decreasing, the stinging receding as the bandage compresses over my bloodied palm.

"Don't try that again," he says in a more serious voice, his caring brown eyes focusing on my hands. He finishes wrapping up my left hand and turns it gently in his palm. "One day you're really going to get hurt irreversibly. And it's going to kill me, you know that."

I nod. "I know that."

I had earlier today tried a stupid stunt on Billy's new skateboard, one I knew I wouldn't be able to master, but insisted on doing anyway. These days I felt as if I had to try insane things in order to feel sane. Billy egged me on; Marissa stayed inside and locked her doors when I would try to involve her, and Casey, not condoning one bit to my antics but not wanting to control me, came along to reluctantly watch and, in most cases, help me patch up my wounds. The more levelheaded he got, the more mature he was getting, the more daring I was getting.

And even though my hands are burning and stinging in pain right now, and even though Casey is in pain seeing _me _in pain, and even though I am miserable because my left wrist and back really took a beating today, I am happy I tried.

Casey finishes off my right hand and then holds it in both of his. He sighs. "Are you still up for the party? I don't want to force you into it."

I shake my head. "Of course I'll be there." Taylor, a previous friend of Casey's has turned over a new leaf apparently. One year later from the night I met Casey, Taylor is throwing another New Year's party. Except this one is supposed to reflect his newfound maturity. Casey wants to trust him. I want to support Casey. We agreed to go, after a very gentlemanly request Taylor made to me in front of Casey a few weeks ago.

"Then, let's go inside." He pocketed the car keys that he couldn't use, anyway. Not until he got his license next year when he turned sixteen. For now, he was settling for driving lessons outside of school. The sooner Casey obtained his license, he would only be breaking one more cuff on his arms. Away from his mother, who practically chained him up most days.

Inside Casey's home Billy was waiting, still trying his best not to strangle me for scuffing his new skateboard.

"I'm sorry," I say, but I don't really mean it. Billy's skateboard took the minimum damage. His skateboard should be apologizing to _me. _

Casey smirks and Billy throws me a look of disgust. I laugh out loud. Casey ran to his room to grab a coat, and when he came back and placed himself on the couch beside me, he smelled of pinecone and citrus.

"I like the perfume," I said with a smirk on my face.

"Well, I didn't want to my reunion with Taylor to be informal," he replies smoothly. Billy tosses his skateboard on the floor in frustration.

"Watch it! You're going to dent the hardwood," Casey cautions, and one look at Billy and I can't help it. Neither can't Billy, we both end up on the floor somehow with a look of disdain on Casey's face. Seeing his face makes us laugh more, and finally Casey pulls me up and turns to toward the front door. "Let's go. You're crazy."

"I know," I say. I grab my own skateboard from the porch with Casey, and we all three head on over to Taylor's house. To his party. To a new year.

The party's casual. People are dressed in jeans and jean shorts and the girls are wearing strappy sandals and braids. It feels like summer, but winter has only just begun. Santa Martina never really gets the worse of the cold, but people visiting their parents or relatives in Northern California during the break like to come back and complain about all the hardships they had to endure, all the outfits ruined by North Faces and South Pole. Devastation. Hardships. This is what teenagers see their lives as. But I would jump at the chance to dive headfirst into a pile of snow. Coatless. Exhilaration, the adrenaline, but mostly, the feeling of being fearless. An expert at dauntlessness, no one would undermine me because of my size or appearance. Or because I'm a girl.

"Hi, Sammy!" Taylor greets me with a warm hug as if we've been best friends forever. I don't return the hug but give him a prim close-lipped smile.

"Hi Taylor," I say, and I find Casey's hand at my side, gripping on to it nervous fingers. I don't like this crowd, I never did. But Casey puts up with my searches for pain, so I should put up with his. Because all this was, to me, was another way to cause pain. To actually give someone like Taylor another chance.

Casey and Taylor, and even Billy, divulge into a conversation brinking too much on the edges of normality and friendliness. I hate it. I hate Taylor. I hate this house. I untangled my fingers from his and wandered off into the kitchen area.

One boy, standing lone at the kitchen counter. He was it, he was the only person in the kitchen now, besides me. He looks up and sees me. He smiles. He's holding a drink. But it's thick and a deep forest green with orange chunks floating around inside it, and to me it looks disgusting. But he takes a giant swig of it anyway.

"Hi," he says. "Want some?" He holds out the drink.

I shake my head, but I laugh out loud for some reason. "No, thanks!" Doesn't he know how strange he looks to others? How weird he must seem, blending drinks alone in somebody else's kitchen, at somebody else's party, offering them to complete strangers? Doesn't he know, or does he not he care.

I figure he doesn't care, because he says, "I'm Dave, but you can call me Dill."

"Dill? Like pickles?"

"Of course, like the pickles." He rolls his eyes. "Haven't you ever read _To Kill a Mockingbird?_"

I shake my head. "No. Not really."

"It's in every freshmen curriculum. Unless you skipped a grade."

"Haven't you ever heard of eighth graders?" I ask. "Because that's what I am. I'm not a freshmen yet."

He nods slowly, understanding. "Oh, right. Dill is a character from the book. Dave is a pretty unfortunate name, so I changed it."

"Why is Dave an unfortunate name?" I try thinking of any reason but I can't.

"Well, my last name is Buster, so that's why."

I find myself laughing out loud again. "You're kidding."

"Actually, I'm not."

"You're lying."

"But I'm not."

"You're on drugs."

"No, I'm—well, actually, that one might be true." He gives me a large, toothy grin. "Just kidding. Unless you count this milkshake to be a drug, then it's very true."

"Milkshake?" I ask. "That _concoction _is a _milkshake?" _

"It is, indeed. Would you like some?" he holds out his glass once again. "I've heard that milkshakes are supposed to bring all the boys to the yard."

I eye him. "Well, then, I'm sorry to be the one informing you that I'm a girl." I reluctantly take his milkshake. "But I really don't think this milkshake would bring any the boys to the yard."

"It would bring _me,_" he insists. I laugh again. Dill. Who _is_ this guy?

I take a cautious sip of his concoction, and my mouth is met with a sensation of citrus and chocolate and mint and marshmallows all in one. But it's amazing, it really is, and this boy, Dill, is just something else entirely.

I turn back to face him and hand him back his drink. "That is _one _milkshake. Make it a little prettier, and all the boys will be coming to your yard in packs."

"How do I make it prettier?" he carefully studies his glass and with complete tact he says, "I think it would be quite rude to blend _you _into this milkshake, wouldn't it?"

I blush furiously, but I laugh, and my stomach is hurting, and I'm laughing, and suddenly someone is holding my hand. I look up to see a smiling Casey on my other side. He must have entered the kitchen when I was busy laughing.

"What's going on?" He asks, pulling me close. His arm loops around my waist gently, he runs his thumb over the bandage on my hand.

"I'm just talking to Dill," I smile over at Dill, who is watching us with a face of…confusion.

And then his plastered smile drops, and I don't know what has happened in his aura. Because suddenly his voice loses it's charm, it's liveliness, and he says in a funny tone, "She was just giving me advice on how to bring all the boys to my yard."

I burst out laughing again, and I feel a slight shift in Casey's positions. What is going on? I don't know.

"Well, bye, Dill," I say, as Casey and I say goodbye to him and leave. "I loved meeting you!"

I don't know what he means by what he calls back. "You don't even know the significance of that sentence, do you? Because I loved meeting you, too!"

Casey and I enter the foyer where we converse with Billy and another one of his friends. But before we leave the party for good I excuse myself to the bathroom. Upon exiting the bathroom, I bump right into Dill himself.

"Oh," I say, smiling. "Hi!"

He smiles big. "I have to know," he says, "Before you leave and I never see you again, what's your name?"

"Sammy," I say. "Sammy Keyes. And you're Dill Buster."

He smiles, and I see something flash in his eyes. "Sammy Keyes. I love that name. Related to Alicia Keys?"

I laugh again. He makes me laugh too much. But I say, "No, because my 'Keyes' as an 'e' before the 'y' And the Sammy is short for Samantha, of course."

I turn to leave again, to the front of the house where I am supposed to meet up with Casey. But Dill catches my hand and turns me around. "Maybe I'll see you again someday. Right?"

"Maybe. I would like that."

"I would love that," he replies. Before he drops my hand, though, he softly, deftly places his cool lips against the bandaged top of my hand. "Until we meet again, fair Samantha." I feel a familiar pang in my chest, like déjà vu occurring, but I try pushing that strange feeling away.

Casey, Billy and I leave the party. Casey and Billy chattering away about how cool it is that Taylor has changed, how great it was that there were no drugs or alcohol at the party. But all I can think about is Dill as I cling on to Casey. I feel like I betrayed Casey in a way, but I didn't really, did I?

It's not until I get back to the high-rise and lay snuggled up on my sofa-bed that it finally dawns on me that Dill reminds me of the old Casey, when Casey was a little more goofy, a little more dramatic, the way I had met him a year ago. How do people change so fast?

A part of me wanted to remember Dill, and love him for charming me. But I knew that to survive my own recklessness, I need a mature Casey. Just the way he is. Hot and cold. Left and right.

We are opposites, but it occurs to me that Casey is exactly who I need to get through a world of self-inflicted pain. I need a bandage on my hand. Comfortable, familiar, dependable. Not a milkshake, a milkshake that melts so easily and loses its cool after a certain amount of time. A milkshake that may be delicious, but also has a part of it that is ugly.

Dill is not this metaphorical milkshake I am referring to.

I am.

**Note: **I know I don't post many stories anymore. And when I do, it's a half-assed story…so I tried my best to make an interesting story right here. It's stupid but whatever. Testing out writing styles, how was this one?


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